In fact, he was the one guy I was sure I didn't need a trisword on in pretty much any circumstances

While I'd agree that he didn't need it, there's no question that as a physical damage specialist he benefitted enormously from it. Certainly was my go-to prep for the Warlord (not to say there aren't other great ones for him), and remains a pretty solid choice for him.

Of course, no disputing that. I just couldn't take either him or the old trisword seriously. I did use it on him when I'd pick it up from the shops, though. He just didn't need it, and it was what it was.

I think it's because of his simplicity and self-sustaniedness. Ability 1) You can't really die, except by accident. Ability 2) If someone tries to kill you you get about as much damage bonus as a rogue. Ability 3) If you use what allows you not to die you get even more damage, giving you the biggest damage in the game.

I mean, it's not that you don't have to prep stuff, or use stuff, but there is so little depth to him that you pretty much always use the same stuff, and the cauldron and the dragonsoul were the first things that made more stuff appealing to a warlord in a while. They actually made me pick him and take him places. The problem then was - he still couldn't die and had the biggest attack bonus in the game. It took me ages to learn to use him because what he was was so unbelievable that I kept making mistakes by expecting some sort of downside to jump out at me if I'm not careful. There isn't one, pretty much, as long as you stack mana/potions and bring a RBS.

Maybe it just looks that way because I play a lot of Mysterea. But I really can't tell what apart from the few things mentioned here has any appeal to warlords...

Hm, I kind of think Warlords fit the best against low-endurance dungeons, since you really need a metric ton of resources. Hence on Naga City I think they're a bit wimpy (i.e. I'd be just as happy with anyone else), while on DL they're fantastic. Much as it traumatises me, I kind of miss the old monster-DL : /

Warlords are actually the best at dungeons with a lot of weak dungeons. I think of warlords as having two stats. Total damage and extra damage. Your total damage is the amount of damage you can get off without any extra CYDSTEPPs. Extra is all the extra damage you could from potions, protections, etc. If a boss is under your total threshold it costs no resources (beyond blackspace) to kill it. From there you can use a formula to see if you can beat the boss (assuming your total damage will not change i.e. you are level 10). All bosses health added-(total damage*the number of bosses)<extra damage, you win. Otherwise, you lose. Therefore, warlords are great on endurance dungeons if you can get your total damage better than most of the bosses (222 in DL, whatever the golem bosses health is in NC). His worst dungeon because of that is DI.

In the sense that high-attack enemies with low health aren't a problem but low-attack enemies with high health are. Most physical classes have pushed resistance and damage high enough that on NC they can just regen fight Meaty, Ironman, Frank etc. to death. Low-attack warlords (i.e. gnomes, elves) with a ton of spare resources aren't such fans. 8 mana for a low-damage hit is really poor efficiency

Regarding the new kingdom look, I fell that the interface would be rather confusing for new players : the difference between races and class should be more obvious (for now there are no visual hints telling the difference).Maybe should the race appear first, then the class...